INTRO

Navaratri or Golu is a festival spanning nine days. Dussera is one of my favorite festivals ever since my childhood. I have been setting up golu for the last 5 yrs. I take a lot of pride in that. I will take a lot of effort to store these dolls in a safe place and try to reuse some of the handmade stuff next year. I ensure to utilize the space available at home.

So, please take a virtual tour of my golu and most of them are theme based.

1. Golu 1 image: step 1 - Is a 7 steps display of dolls. On the top most steps, we have Durga mata, lord Murugan and Saraswati.
6th step - Ashta Lakshmi dolls display
5th step - lord Narashimha (with handmade backdrop)
4th step - Ragavendra swamy ( my favorite created backdrop of Brindavan for ragavendra swamy.)
3rd step - Ram, Lakshman and sita
2nd step - Ganesh chaturthi ( I have created backdrop for lord ganesha celebrating Ganesh chaturthi with a small tray placed with fruits and modak (made with clay) i have also dolled up the marapachi bommai
1st step - Dasavatharam set (with handmade painted on wooden coasters), with repainted ranganatha doll


2. Golu 2 image: 3rd step -I have created a background for the famous gnanapazham story.
2nd and 1st steps - Is a collage of the birth story of lord Krishna. I have used blue for water in most of the places. Almost all the backdrops are created by me starting from the little krishna on cradle, river, house, makhan chor, waterfall near govardhan, tree behind Radha Krishna in Jhoola.

3. Golu 3 image - Is a wedding theme. Starting from engagement, I have made the backdrop (engagement, wedding and reception) and handmade thambulam with the janavasam heading towards the temple.

4. Golu 4 image - Is a multi storey building with various shops like - general store (Chettiar house and jute bag stand is handmade), Pathira kadai (created with miniature utensils from terracotta, glass, steel and pithalai. The stand for pathirai was created by me except the steel stand.), saree shop (handmade shop) with backdrop, mini sweet stall (handmade sweets and candy - made using air dry clay) , vegetable vendor cart handmade, tea shop with all eatables handmade using clay.

5. Golu 5 image - Temple gopuram - the entire temple setup was handmade.

6. Golu 6 image - Mini golu padi - with cute little dolls

7. Golu 7 image - small temple and pongal setup with most of the setup made by me

I hope you enjoy the virtual tour. Have a divine Navaratri!